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Barack Obama is refusing to pay street money in Philly.  

The Obama campaign has told the local ward bosses they’re not paying out street money this year, a position that has stirred criticism. At a time when Obama is pulling in tens of millions of dollars in campaign money every month, the city’s ward bosses are mystified. They know he can afford it.

“Maybe in other parts of the country you can come in and you have people who are not really into politics and they’re excited about working for a candidate, but Philadelphia is not one of those places,” said Betty Townes, a committeewoman from Germantown.

I learned politics by handling street money in 1994 in Ohio, under Lou Stokes’ former heavy, Lynnie Powell. I negotiated the statewide street money deal in 1996.  It’s not a get-out-the-vote operation.  Never has been.  It’s always been just this side of extortion. It’s another way Barack Obama is changing politics as we know it.  

And when a committeewoman says “Philadelphia is not one of those places”, what that really means is that you either pay up or we bad mouth you in the community.

The problem with street money is that it often is the only economic stimulus activity in some of these neighborhoods.  Ever.  The every-two-years injection of hundreds of thousands of dollars into the 90% black precincts literally gives people jobs.  Maybe only for two weeks, but those two weeks are the most money some of these folks see until the next batch of street money.  So when a Democratic presidential campaign needs those 90% black precincts to turn out, the street money operation almost feels like an act of charity.  That’s how Dickensian the American economy has become.

In Ohio, street money is the final piece of any get-out-the-vote (GOTV) operation.  In a presidential year, it numbers in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, perhaps millions.  The epicentre of an Ohio street money operation is in the 11th CD, where Stephanie Tubbs Jones is now congresswoman, and where the king of all street money is Arnold Pinckney.

Tubbs Jones, and by default Pinckney, are in the tank for Hillary.  But Hillary will not be the nominee.  And when Barack comes into town in the fall, Pinckney will be standing there with his hand out.  Pinckney’s “business” in the fall of presidential years consists of charging the Ohio Democratic Party anywhere between $4,000 to $10,000 a month as a “consulting fee”, which he pockets, in exchange for “administering” the hundreds of thousands of dollars he hands out to folks who then proceed to stand outside precincts holding a sign.  

Read that again.  

THEY STAND OUTSIDE A PRECINCT.  And they HOLD A SIGN.

If you’re wondering how that gets out any votes, so did I.  I wondered this for years, and for years I tried to get the sign holders to do something, anything at all, to physically take people from their homes and MOVE THEM TO THE POLLING PLACE.  Leave door-hangers on doorknobs.  Knock on the doors.  Make phone calls.  ANYTHING AT ALL.

This NEVER HAPPENS.  It is a myth that street money is GOTV money.  I’ve always thought that some enterprising young student could do a doctoral thesis on the marginal effect on turnout per dollar of street money, and the finding would be, SHOCK HORROR, it doesn’t make one iota of difference on turnout.  Because the vast majority of the money is spent to transport to, and feed at the polling place, a stationary yard sign attached to a human being.  

Now, the Pinckney’s of the world will tell you that this stationary human yard sign is valuable, because it gives a signal to the voter as they walk in that the local chieftans have endorsed the name on the stationary human yard sign.  OK….fine.  Then that’s extortion.  For the longest time, the Pinckney’s of the world knew that a Democratic candidate for president, who needs Ohio, had no choice but to play ball.

Barack Obama doesn’t have to play ball in these precincts.  Turnout in these areas will go up well beyond anything any street money operation has ever produced, simply because of Barack.  And Barack will get at least 90% of those votes, maybe all of them.  Not one of those voters needs to see someone holding a sign in one hand and a sandwich in the other, standing at the door with Barack’s sign to know who they should vote for.  The voter already made that decision.

So how will street money evolve?  No one believes it will go away entirely.  My guess is that when Barack gets to Ohio in the fall, the deal will be to turn street money into an actual turnout operation, with actual moving human beings who go and get voters, whether or not Arnold Pinckney is involved.  Pinckney will moan about it, but his people will either have to produce new bodies in the polling place, or his money will go elsewhere. 

And that will be a very good thing for Democrats.

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